"Are we there yet?" Horses at rest stop in Laurel, Miss. (Guy Busby/Press-Register)

MEMPHIS, Tennessee -- The still, black Mississippi River reflected the lights of Memphis just before a Saturday sunrise.

We’d come 400 miles since Friday with another 350 to go before midday. As we crossed the Interstate 55 bridge, I began to wonder if those with more knowledge of the situation were right. We really didn’t know what we were getting into.

It seemed simple enough, maybe a bit taxing. We wanted to get my stepdaughter’s two horses to her new home in Iowa while the weather was still warm enough for them to become acclimated — or at least as acclimated as Gulf Coast natives, two or four-legged, can become to Midwestern winters.

My wife suggested that we could meet her somewhere between Silverhill and Iowa. I thought that we could meet about halfway, maybe just north of Memphis. My wife suggested St. Louis. Well, that is north of Memphis.

That would give the horses more time to get settled into their new home, my wife said.

After a discussion in which I used my considerable powers of persuasion, we settled on a compromise in which we’d drive the horses to a state park near Troy, Mo., which is about an hour from St. Louis, on the Iowa side.

On Friday morning, we packed the truck and trailer with hay, feed, equipment and other items the horses would need in their new home. Just before loading the horses, I hooked the trailer to the truck. I turned on the lights to check the electrical connection.

Nothing happened. We’d just had the trailer checked. We were already running about an hour late. Not a good start.

At a nearby garage, we found out that the problem was just a couple of blown fuses. A woman waiting for her car to be serviced asked my wife where we were going. When told, she looked at us, at the trailer and back at us.

"You’re a very good mother," was all she said to my wife.

Driving a truck with a horse trailer isn’t that different than driving a car, except that you can’t see out the back, you’ve got a couple inches of clearance on each side of the lane and that you’re getting less than 10 miles to the gallon. During frequent stops to refill the tank, we checked on our passengers. The horses seemed fine except for a look they kept giving me that seemed to say "what have you gotten us into?"

We stopped for the night just south of Memphis. Leaving before 6 a.m. Saturday, we crossed into Tennessee, then Arkansas.

Missouri went on forever. At another fuel stop, a woman with another horse trailer pulled up to an adjoining pump. She asked if we were going to a local horse show. My wife explained what we were doing.

We got the same look we got in the garage in Foley.

We reached the park not long after noon. I thought that we’d made it with little incident. We passed through the narrow picturesque park roads where the leaves were already turning. As we neared our destination, we passed the park signs warning that the picturesque bridge to the equine area was closed.

After a detour that involved driving several miles outside the park, we found the equine area and my stepdaughter. By necessity, it was a short reunion. A few hugs and a ham sandwich later, we watched the trailer head north toward Iowa.

Owner and horses were together, even if we’d miss all three. I said to my wife that at least it wasn’t your typical weekend. A lot of people go on cruises or weekend airline jaunts, but how many people could she think of who drove 1,500 miles in 40 hours for a picnic in Missouri.

Guy Busby is a reporter for the Baldwin Register. His column appears on Sunday. He can be reached at 251-219-5490 or gbusby@press-register.com.